None of us suddenly becomes something overnight. The preparations have been in the making for a lifetime.
—Gail Godwin

To know how to wait is the great secret of success.
—Joseph Marie de Maistre (1753–1821)

Hardships and handicaps can … stimulate our energy to survive them. You’ll find if you study the lives of people who’ve accomplished things, it’s often been done with the help of great willpower in overcoming this and that.
—Beatrice Wood

When you work seven days a week, 14 hours a day, you get lucky.
—Armand Hammer (1898–1990)

…This thing that we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.
—Mary Pickford

There is no point at which you can say, “Well, I’m successful now. I might as well take a nap.”
—Carrie Fisher

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

Relating

I believe that basically people are people…but it is our differences which charm, delight and frighten us.
—Agnes Newton Keith

When people become too intense, too serious, they will have trouble in relating to any sort of social game or norm. Perhaps this is why jokes are so important. On one hand they tell us about where the problems and grievances are, and, at the same time, they provide the means of enduring these grievances by laughing at the problems.
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, author and media expert

The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation—or a relationship.
—Deborah Tannen

The more you try to be interested in other people, the more you find out about yourself.
—Thea Astely

On Creativity

I do much of my creative thinking while golfing. If people know you are working at home they think nothing of walking in for a cup of coffee. But they wouldn’t dream of interrupting you on the golf course.
—Harper Lee

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
—Helen Keller (1880-1968)

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
—Linus Pauling (1901-1994)

Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.
—Mark Van Doren (1894-1972)